I am trying to finish another paper tonight so I can go to bed at a decent time, but I wanted to post something up here. So I will post my devotion on Psalm 14. I hope and pray your week will be more pleasant than mine and ask that you keep me in your prayers. We are all in this together and yet not one of us is alone as the Holy Spirit lives and reigns in our hearts just as Christ lives and reigns over the world and all powers, rule and authority. In His name, Amen.
The first verse in this psalm is very appropriate in my mind, because to me you would have to be an absolute idiot or fool to think there is no God. It just has never made sense to me. Now I understand I was brought up in the faith from the time I was a very small child. And yes there was a time in my life when I was small. So I have never really known life without God, but as I try to imagine life without God it just doesn’t make sense to me. I cannot fathom the idea of life without knowing God exists and all of the amazing things He does for me. As a child, I could easily look around at trees, birds, cows, thunderstorms, and everything else in our world and just see that it took a pretty powerful God to create all of this and to design it in just exactly the right way that things always continue to work. I mean trees are amazing how they can turn from a tiny seed into the giant towers that I spent half my childhood climbing in, building tree forts, and jumping out of. I climbed back up into my old tree fort where I spent a huge amount of my childhood just a couple years ago. Now when I say tree fort, I simply mean a few 2x4’s nailed into a “Y” with a piece of plastic from dad’s old work as the seat on top of the 2x4’s. Nothing fancy but it was good enough for this simple minded kid. However, as I climbed back up there I could see the tree growing around the 2x4’s and they were actually being engulfed or swallowed by the tree. Now standing on the ground I would tell you that tree is the exact same size it was when I was a kid, but by this closer look I had to admit it is still growing. And the fact that there is a foreign object in its way of growth was no problem as the bark and new wood will just go around it. Now explain to me how a tree first of all can keep growing even after its already taller than our house, let alone grow up and around a 2x4 with no problems or effects if it hadn’t been created to do so. How can a thunderstorm, clouds in the air produce water, electricity, and a huge boom of a sound that can rattle the windows in a house just by random chance? It just doesn’t make sense to me. And now as I get older, death would just be unbearable if there was truly no God. The fact that this life really has no meaning other than to do what you can while you are alive before you become a pile of decaying bones is just ridiculous. Why live if there is no more meaning to life than that? If man serves no purpose than to try to leave the world a good place for the man who is to come after him, why bother? Why not just use up all the resources and good things now while we are here and make the most of our lives and not worry about the next generations? Sorry, I am rambling nonsense, but that is exactly what life without God is to me, just pure nonsense. It’s not possible, it’s not feasible, it’s not even imaginable to me. Everything I do in this world is affected by the fact that I know there is a God. Now I am not saying I am perfect and do everything right, but when I do something wrong, I know it is wrong because it goes against what God wants, against His will. I still make mistakes, and I still make bad choices that I know are wrong but I do them anyway. However, if I didn’t believe there was a God watching over me, I wouldn’t care if I only did bad because who is around to know or to see? The fact that I know there is a God always watching me is what leads me to feel guilty for those bad choices. However, the fact that I not only know that there is a God, but because I know who my God is and how He works, I know His will and how to choose the right thing next time. I also know there is forgiveness for those wrong choices I did make. I also know there is more to this life than just trying to do everything I can before I end up in a wood box. I know I have eternal life and that one day my body will be resurrected and made perfect in His glory, reunited with my soul to live that eternal life in His presence in the new creation. In a place with trees and thunderstorms and all the things He created only in perfect form this time. Only a fool could say there is no God, and I thank God that He gave me His Spirit to call me with the Gospel and enlighten me with the faith so I am not a fool. I thank Him that He chose me to know there is a God, He is a loving God, and He is the one who creates all and gives us our forgiveness and eternal salvation.
